No Escape

No Escape

A trilogy about people who endured abuse, loss and injustice from which there was

No Escape

By Joan Duncan

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Smashwords Edition

Copyright (c) 2013 by Joan Duncan

All rights reserved, including right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address author at P.O. Box 353, Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina, 19465.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is available

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART ONE

Prologue

Chapter One Beginnings

Chapter Two Adventures Pursued

Chapter Three The High Life

Chapter Four In Command

Chapter Five Nervana

Chapter Six Joi De Vivre

Chapter Seven Restrained

Chapter Eight Soul Mate

Chapter Nine Check Mate

PART TWO

Prologue

Chapter One Happy Days

Chapter Two Secret Adventures

Chapter Three Fruit From the Tree

Chapter Four Beginning Over

Chapter Five The Sands of Time

Chapter Six Sands of Time Run Faster

Chapter Seven Ebbing Sands of Time

Chapter Eight Empty Hourglass

PART THREE

Prologue

Chapter One The Acting Life for Me

Chapter Two On The Road

Chapter Three Purple Heart, Bronze Star

Chapter Four Road to Success

Chapter Five Success Found

Chapter Six Success Ebbing

Chapter Seven Success Fleeting

Chapter Eight Success Lost

Chapter Nine Death of Success

PART ONE

PROLOGUE

THERE ARE FEW RENAISSANCE MEN BUT THIS MAN WAS ONE, WHO WAS ABUSED AND MISTREATED TO SUCH A DEGREE, THAT

HE FOUND NO ESCAPE

O’er the stormy sea of human life we sail, until our anchored spirits rest in the far haven of eternity. R. Montgomery

* * *

THE GREATEST LOSS IS NOT DEATH, BUT WHAT DIES INSIDE US WHILE WE LIVE. N. Cousins

A man in his senior years gazed at dusk down a rural road into the setting sun. He was alone so he could think about his life. He feared return to further abuse, theft, forced confinement, and abandonment by those he loved most – his family. How had they gotten away with all those crimes against him? Slowly, tears ran down his face as precious liquid silver drops, reflecting the lingering rays of the setting sun. Hope and escape were gone.

He had long given up finding a way out. He seized this last time in a place that did not threaten his safety or abuse his mind. Escape to this country road was temporary. Someone would discover his absence and find him, lock him up again as though he was a criminal, and restrain him. Indeed, the shoe was on the other foot. The real criminal was well disguised as a family member who took away his freedom, robbed him of all his assets and held him captive in a padded cell, called a retirement facility. And his family did all this legally, so there was nothing he could do about it. Such legalized crimes were committed all the time against the older citizen, who had no ally or recourse. All that was needed was one irrevocable document, with which a person obtained complete control over that person, called a POA - Power of Attorney. Welcome to this modern world, he thought.

The golden rays from the sun setting on the horizon beckoned him to follow its path of enchanting color. A fleeting hope of escape from captive life and unfriendly strangers crossed his mind. But his life was like the fading light fleeing into the cloud of darkening dusk on the horizon, hidden and forbidding. His hope had long been replaced by hurt, confusion and loneliness. He was like a dog kicked out by a family into a strange neighborhood and left to fend for himself. The family he loved and life he desired had slipped through his fingers and he could not catch its threads.

Just a few years ago, life was good. The sight of azure water and sparkling white sand had given him pleasure and joy. He was retired and looked forward to an enjoyable life in his golden years. He finally had time to enjoy his life and family.

Seniors were encouraged to relax and enjoy the good times they earned, as a victory trophy or laurel wreath in an endurance race he finally won. Older did not mean disabled or abandoned. He worked all his life to give his children education, cars, weddings, houses, trips, vacations, gifts: he sacrificed to give them a good life.

Now it was his turn to have that happy retirement he earned as a reward for his sacrifices. But his life did not turn out as he envisioned. He had a few years of leisure and enjoyment. Then his life shifted and started to fade away, like the sun setting dimly at the end of the road, where he stood. The golden elixir of life was lost in the dark mist and fading rays at the horizon of the road. He was engulfed and drawn deep into its smothering darkness. He saw no escape.

OUR GREATEST LOSS IS WHAT DIES INSIDE US.

First, his children became too busy in their lives to include him. He was gradually excluded from family occasions and visits. They forgot to spend time with him or keep in touch. He was expelled from his past and from those he loved. He eventually lost hope and became resigned to being alone and deserted.

Then he was denied funds. He had no money to spend, no bank account access, and his credit cards were cancelled. His children told him the retirement facility in which he did not want to be confined needed all his income. Finally, he was denied freedom and exit from the facility, unless with a family member or strange caretaker, as a guard to keep him safe. They had taken everything away; his freedom, his money, his family, his choices, his hope, his friends, his home, his life. He was unwanted and cut off from his past, all without his consent. And he could do nothing to stop the abandonment, loss of funds, and incarceration. The tortured stream of mercurial tears that cursed down his cheeks fell from anguished eyes, blurring his sight and any life that was left in him. They should have taken his mind. There was no escape.

He remembered a movie called Ship of Fools. Katherine Anne Porter wrote the book. The story took place in the summer of 1931 on board a ship bound for disaster. Although the passengers were not alike, they had similar expectations and purposes. They wanted to reach a safe destination for a better life. It was not to be. Instead, they experienced fear of being lost at sea in an endless dark haze of stormy weather, dark skies, and an unknown destination.

The characters failed to understand the reality of their lives, because of false beliefs, lies they were told, deceptions by their families, and inescapable selfishness of mankind. They were isolated at sea and alone, just as in life. Any hopes or dreams they may have had in the beginning of the voyage faded away into the engulfing darkness of their lifeline horizon. The man’s life was like that; alone, forgotten, isolated by his family eager to be rid of him, and sent out to sea in an endless voyage to nowhere, on the same kind of Ship of Fools.

OUR GREATEST LOSS IS WHAT DIES INSIDE US.

The tragedy is that someday those same family members would become old and sent to their demise on a similar Ship of Fools, by the greed, selfishness, abuse, and banishment of their own younger children. But, they did not think about such a possibility now.

In the 15th century, a book written by Sebastian Brant was titled Ship of Fools. He described the story of passengers lured by lies aboard a ship, without a pilot and without a destination. Renaissance men developed a way to deal with unwanted older people and tormented souls. They sailed on a ship without destination or escape, with only folly and the sea around them. The ship was laden with fools endlessly crisscrossing European waterways and seas, containing its pathetic cargo of unwanted souls, until they were no more.

A few souls unaware of this deception enjoyed the voyage to nowhere and its isolation. But most of the fools became hopeless and died alone, abandoned and forgotten by their families. What better way to be rid of an awkward situation.

Families who rid themselves of their unwanted relatives took pleasure in catching an occasional sight of the ship full of its ghostly passengers, wandering aimlessly without a pilot. It was a cruel and pathetic way to solve a problem of the unwanted. They got rid of their problem relatives by throwing them into a bizarre kind of prison. Does that way differ from the way older people are treated today?

This book will follow the vibrant lives and disastrous ends of three unusual people. Forms of abuse and cruelty were imposed on each of their lives. Although there is not an actual Ship of Fools’ the similarity in each life was frightening. Selfishness and greed motivated each family to mistreat its senior member, without regard to preferences or needs.

It resembled our modern day method to get rid of unwanted older souls. Out of sight, out of mind, out to sea on a modern day Ship of Fools called a retirement facility, from which there is no escape until the end of life. And it is all performed legally. What dies within us during life is a greater loss than death. All of these poor souls were lost because of what already died within them. Caveat vita, dear souls, caveat vita.

CHAPTER ONE

BEGINNINGS

Youth, what man’s age is like to be doeth show; We may our ends by our beginnings know. John Denham

* * *

Hey, kid. Get away from that plane. You are too young to be wandering around this airport. And you are not allowed to put gas into the tank of that plane. Do you want to blow everyone up? You could get hurt. By the way, where is your dad? Why isn’t he watching you? Why aren’t you in school?

The airport attendant was angry. His job was not to babysit strange kids, who were underfoot in an airport. He had better things to do. There was a Cessna 172 float plane tied close to the end of the runway, settled on the river that flowed next to the airport, and its owner would need it to be gassed and attended.

The kid just would not go away, no matter how many times the attendant told him to leave. He was a short, thin, scrawny boy, with light hair and piercing blue eyes. He seemed intelligent enough to know it was dangerous and he should not hang around an airport, but he refused to leave. The attendant guessed he was about 12 years old. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the boy walking over to the gas line and lifting the gas nozzle to fill a 5 gallon red gas can. What did that boy think he was doing?

What do you think you are doing? You can’t mess with gas in an airport. Get out of here kid, before I call the police. The attendant yelled at Rand and was really furious by now. The boy paid no attention and continued to fill the gasoline can with gas. The attendant approached him and removed the gasoline hose from the boy’s hands.

Rand knew he had to explain himself. He was not a bad kid. But he was tired of trying to explain himself to adults when they mistook him for a child. He was 15 years old, almost 16 years, but he truthfully knew he looked much younger. Because he was slightly built and not yet his full height, he was mistaken for a much younger child than he was. Although not fully grown in size, he far exceeded older people in mental ability. Rand was a prodigy, called a Wunderkind, who already achieved much that took others years to attain.

ALL LIFE IS AN EXPERIMENT. THE MORE EXPERIMENTS YOU MAKE, THE BETTER YOUR LIFE. Emerson.

He could pilot a single engine airplane when he was 14 years old. That was a year prior to receiving his pilot’s license. He flew the airplane before he was ever licensed. Because he lived in a vastly wooded area in Maine, the only place an airplane could land on, or take off from, was the surface of one of the many lakes that dotted that State. The airplane he flew was a 172 Cessna plane with pontoons, called a float plane.

His stepfather obtained the Cessna fitted with floats, so it could be kept on a lake close to the house Rand lived with his mother and stepfather. Because he hung out at an airport with land runways in a town close by, he learned to fly a plane when he was about 12 years old, and was proficient with flying and check lists to start and end a flight. By age 14, he was qualified to receive a license. His stepfather guessed Rand could handle a float plane parked on a lake close to home.

Rand did just that. He taught himself to how fly, to perform a pre-flight check-list, to take off on angles of attack, to hand-wind a propeller to start the engine and to handle flight controls, to use the horizontal stabilizer at all times, the ailerons, effects of wind drafts, and landing gear controls. After reading a book on flying and a little practice, Rand passed his physical, applied for a license and was granted permission to fly a single engine airplane by the State of Maine. Besides, physics and calculus were so easy to Rand that they bored him, and he was on his way to be an engineer. Flying was natural for him.

ALL LIFE IS AN EXPERIMENT.

I can fly my stepfather back and forth to business meetings in Boston, by landing the float plane on the Charles River and tying it up at the end of a short concrete runway where I can get gasoline’ said Rand.

The gasoline line did not reach the river, where the plane was tied up. Rand filled the tank by carrying 5-gallon cans of gasoline until it was filled. He then washed the plane so it gleamed. By that time, his stepfather was usually finished with his meeting and ready to return home to Maine. It was good for business when he mentioned to his colleagues, Oh by the way, I flew down in my plane for this meeting. Everyone was very impressed. His stepfather was happy, and Rand was doing what he wanted most in the world to do, which was to fly that airplane.

Rand had to give his attention to the pesky attendant. I am the pilot of the plane, and I have the right to gas it up and wash it on this airfield.

Come on kid, you can’t be a pilot. You are just a boy. What are you, about 12 years old? No way you can fly planes.

For your information, I am almost 16 years old. I have a current pilot’s license and a flight log inside that plane, and I will show them to you. Rand entered the cockpit and produced those documents, to the amazement of the attendant.

Well, I’ll be. You are a licensed pilot and you can fly. Sorry, buddy, you look too short and young to do what you do, so I made a mistake, like anyone would. Go ahead and finish what you have to do. I won’t bother you again. Rand proceeded to complete his work and saw his step-father approaching.

What seems to be the trouble here? Nothing, said Rand. I just explained to this attendant how easy it is to fly a float plane. He was intrigued by it, because a float plane is not common here.

Oh, let’s get home. Business is over and I want to get home before dark.

Aye, Aye, dad. We are all checked out and ready to go, said Rand.

Rand waited for clearance from the tower and lifted the plane from the River. He circled slowly and headed northeast toward home. He was skilled in his task. He had no difficulty with his flying ability. He had plenty of experience. Instead of playing with bikes and wooden toys, his world was in flying and farther horizons. His mind was intrigued on how grand schemes were designed and how they worked. Other pursuits were for kids, not for Rand.

Rand skillfully landed the float plane on the lake a short walk to the family home. Because Rand was an only child, the only other kids he had to associate with were those in school, and they were not like Rand. Sometimes they talked about him behind his back, but he ignored them. He had his own dreams and plans to conquer his world of achievement.

Rand was happy to be home before dark. He could fly at night, but the path from the lake to the house was uneven and Rand did not want his stepfather to stumble in the dark. Rand was ready for the dinner he knew his mother made for them. His mother was his ally. She doted on Rand because he was her only child and encouraged his flights of fancy. He loved the freedom he found in flying. He also loved the freedom he found when he skied. He did not need other kids around. He could easily entertain himself. His drive and quest for knowledge keep him busy. School was not his challenge. His challenge was to reach to the skies to find deliverance from an ordinary life.

ALL LIFE IS AN EXPERIMENT.

How did Rand develop as a pioneer and prodigy as he grew into manhood?

His upbringing was not unusual, except that he was an only child. He had a loving mother and doting father, both before and after his mother obtained a divorce. He grew up with adults around him, except when he attended school. Outside of school, he hung around with adults in an airport, from whom he could learn the skills he sought.

Rand thought back to his childhood. It seemed rather dull to him. He attended a boys’ school and played on those athletic teams that did not require strength and height, such as boxing, La Cross, and baseball. Rand was a small, thin child, with pale mousy-colored hair and a light complexion. His mother worried that he would not grow up strong enough to defend himself from other kids at school. Her fear was unfounded.

Rand had slight difficulty with some of the larger kids at school. Of course they did nothing in the open. When there were no adults around, larger kids called him names and tried to push him around. That happened once. Then Rand learned to punch, with a metal object in his fist, so the biggest bully went own like a log. That was the end of bothering Rand. He was left alone, to study how cars operated, how planes were assembled and flown, how to overcome any obstacles of gravity and nature. He was analytical and intelligent. Science and math were his favorite subjects. He could analyze a problem and search until he found an answer. He was not deterred. He pursued any plan or purpose he sought to solve. He succeeded when others may have failed. He did not admit to limitations in his intellectual pursuits.

Rand grew up as a normal, but inquiring, child. Although he was not tall and was rather slight in build, he grew to be 5 feet, 10 inches tall, with a powerful chest and muscles. He could handle those big planes, even though he still looked so young.

School passed fast. He did not have to spend much time studying, but had time to pursue his beloved flying and skiing. Methods and instrumentality were still rather primitive. But as the field developed, Rand developed with new innovations. He graduated from a single engine to a dual engine plane. And then to a jet engine. Nothing was too much for Rand to handle. He was a natural at everything mechanical and analytical he did. His ability to handle advanced developments was easy. Rand seemed to be attracted to weaponry as well as airplanes. He was a dead shot and could handle any firearm and any situation that he was exposed to handle. What a guy. Rand was a good thing that came in a small package. He was never still and never satisfied, but continued to search out and solve problems. He was a natural scholar, although it was not work to him, but pleasure. The social education he lacked had to be learned in special ways.

Did Rand have any time with the ladies? Not when he was young. He was very shy. But he caught up with women when he got older, and Rand will tell about his experiences in that area in good time. It occurred after he started on his life’s purpose, and the reader can wonder how his social life developed. But